Rapture

by J. R. Ward

  Matthias laughed in a harsh burst. "Strangely, I can respect that. But I don't get why in the hell you're helping me now."

  "Job change." Jim reached for the remote. "Look, we made the news."

  As he unmuted the TV, a different newscaster filed a report on the body that had been found, gee whiz, right where they'd left it in that service corridor. No suspects. No identity on the victim--and good luck with that. Even if they found something, the aliases set up by XOps were impenetrable. Further, time was ticking for the coroner: The body was going to disappear from the morgue any minute--if it hadn't been removed already.

  Just another cold case that was going to get stuck in a file cabinet down at the CPD.

  "What kind of work do you do now?" Matthias asked.

  "Independent contractor."

  "Still doesn't explain why you're helping a man you hate."

  Jim stared at the guy and thought of everything Matthias represented in the war with Devina. "Now...I need you."

  As Mels got ready for work, she broke a nail getting dressed, and then spilled coffee on her blouse in the kitchen. Under the bad-luck-comes-in-threes rule, she had a feeling she was on someone's hit list, but at least her mother was at an early morning yoga class--and that meant she could get out the door without a lot of chatter.

  Sometimes, talking to her mother about her job was tough. Like the woman needed to hear the details of that poor girl at the motel?

  Hardly good breakfast conversation.

  Besides, Mels wasn't feeling talkative. It had been a long night, what with writing up her piece on the murder and sending it into editorial so it could be copyedited and put up online first thing. And today, she was going to focus on further reporting so she could submit a more thorough article for tomorrow's paper edition.

  With any luck, Monty was going to let his fingers do the walking to her cell phone, so that mouth of his could do what it did best.

  On the way to pick up Tony, she got stuck in a line at the McDonald's drive-thru, but there was no way she was turning up at her buddy's apartment without breakfast. Finally, with two sausage biscuits in a bag and a pair of coffees in the console, she was back in business in the borrowed Toyota.

  As she pulled over at the curb in front of his building, the guy hefted himself off the front steps and waddled his way over, his bulk making him seem much taller than he really was.

  "Have I told you lately how much I love you?" she asked as he got in.

  Tony grinned. "If that's breakfast, then yes, you have."

  "I got you a matched set." She handed the bag over. "One of the coffees is mine."

  "Better than a pair of earrings." He unwrapped one white package. "Mmm, edible."

  "I really appreciate your letting me borrow your baby."

  "Come on, where do I have to go? Long as I can get to work and back, I'm good." As he chewed, he frowned and picked a receipt out of the ashtray. "You were at the Marriott yesterday?"

  Mels put the directional signal on, and pulled out into traffic, wishing that her friend wasn't so damned observant. "Ah, yeah, I was."

  "What time?"

  Mels kept her eyes on the road ahead, recognizing the Reporter Voice she was getting hit with. "It was last night. I was just visiting a friend."

  "So did you see all the commotion?"

  "Commotion?"

  "You don't know what happened?"

  "I was called out to that murder scene in the west end. What are you talking about?"

  "Wait, you got put on that prostitute with the hair color?"

  "I did. So what went down at the Marriott?"

  As Tony took his own damn time finishing the first Mc-whatever-it-was-called, Mels's stomach churned. Man, if he tried to start the second one, she was going to jump out of her skin--

  "There was a shooting in the basement of the hotel. Eric's assigned to it. There were bullets exchanged in the alley, and someone broke in through one of the rear delivery entrances to the restaurants. Nine-one-one was called and they found a man with no identification and no weapons on him dead from a knife wound."

  "I thought you said there were bullets involved?"

  "Oh, he'd been shot at all right. But that wasn't what killed him." Tony made a slicing motion across the front of his neck. "Slit wide."

  A shiver went through her.

  Because you're going to die if you don't get away from me.

  Mels told herself to calm down. That was a big hotel in a not-good-after-dark part of town. Murders happened, particularly among drug dealers and their clientele--

  Tony rifled around in the bag to get out biscuit number two. "Apparently, the guy would have died from the gunshots, except he had one hell of a bulletproof vest on. Eric said the guys at the CPD were drooling over the thing. They'd never seen one so sweet." The gentle sound of another white wrapper being turned back was followed by a fresh whiff of unhealthy-and-awesome.

  "So what did you find out last night?" he asked around his mouthful.

  Mels pulled a rolling stop and hung a left onto Trade, her head tangling up: Matthias had been going to bed when she'd left him--although that didn't mean he couldn't have gone out after she'd--

  "Hello? Mels?"

  "Sorry, what?"

  "When you were at the motel. What'd you find out?"

  "Ah...right, sorry, not much. The woman was killed after she colored her hair--her throat was slashed."

  "Two in one night. It's an epidemic."

  Well, there was that, she thought. No one could be in two places at once, right?

  Okay, now she was being crazy. "Yeah. Weird."

  Five blocks later, they came up to the CCJ building, and she parked around back, giving the keys to Tony as they walked over to the rear entrance.

  "Thanks again," she said.

  "Like I told you, whenever you want. Especially if you buy me breakfast. And will you stop putting dollar bills in my drawer when you take a Twinkie? You know you're welcome to my stash."

  It was true. Tony had a boatload of food grade petroleum in his desk and she had been known to partake from time to time. But she wasn't a mooch.

  Mels opened the door and held it for him. "I'm not going to rob you."

  "If I give you permission, it's not robbing. And besides, you don't take, like, what, more than a Ho-Ho or two a month."

  "Pilfering is pilfering."

  They hit the shallow stairs that led up to the glass doors of the newsroom, and he got the door this time. "I wish everyone felt like that."

  "See? It's not your job to feed us all."

  The instant they stepped through, the ringing phones and fast voices and scurrying feet was a familiar theme song, sweeping into her body, carrying her to her desk. As she sat down, the dull roar smoothed over the anxiety about Matthias, and she signed into her computer without conscious thought--

  The manila envelope landed on her desk with a slap, startling her.

  "Got something pretty for you to look at," Dick said with a sly smile.

  She reached for the packet and slid out...

  Well, wasn't she glad she'd given both those sausage biscuits to Tony: They were photographs of the prostitute's body, eight-and-a-half-by-elevens in color, all up close and personal.

  As Dick hovered over her like he was waiting for her to chick out, she refused to give him any satisfaction, even though the center of her chest ached at the images...particularly the one that showed the neck wound in detail, the deep slash cutting through the skin and into the pink-and-red muscle and pale gristle of the throat.

  When Mels put the photos down, she made sure that was the one on top, and noticed that Dick, for all his Big Man attitude, refused to look at the image.

  "Thanks." She kept her eyes steady on his. "This is going to help a lot."

  Dick cleared his throat like maybe he'd pushed the asshole act a little far, even by his own low standards. "Let me see your follow-up ASAP."

  "You got it."

  As he sauntered
off, she shook her head. He should know better than to give her father's daughter a challenge like that.

  And P.S., the fact that he would at all was just gross.

  Kind of made her think about the way Monty used tragedy for his own purposes.

  Frowning, she went through the photographs again, and then focused on the one that was taken on the morgue slab. There was a strange rash on the lower abdomen, a reddening of the skin, as if the victim had been sunburned--

  As her cell went off, she answered it without looking at the number. "Carmichael."

  "Hello."

  The deep voice sent a burst of heat right through her core. Matthias.

  For a split second she wondered how he'd gotten her number. But then she remembered that she'd given him her business card--and written the thing down.

  "Well, good morning," she said.

  "How you doing?"

  In her head, a Ping-Pong match started up between what Tony had told her in the car and what that kiss had felt like. Back and forth, back and forth--

  "You there, Mels?"

  "Yes." She rubbed her eyes, and then had to stop because the bruised one didn't appreciate the attention. "Sorry. I'm okay, how are you? Any more memories coming back?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes."

  Mels straightened in her chair, her interest shifting, locking on. "Like what?"

  "I don't suppose your Nancy Drew would mind checking something out for me?"

  "Absolutely. Tell me what you want to know." As he spoke she took notes, writing down names, murmuring uh-huhs at the pauses. "Okay. This is no problem. Do you want me to call you back?"

  "Yeah, that'd be great."

  There was a strange pause. "All right," she said awkwardly. "So I'll call you--"

  "Mels..."

  Closing her eyes, she felt him against her, his body pressing in, his mouth taking over, that dominance that was intrinsic to his personality coming out.

  "Do you know what happened at your hotel last night?" she said abruptly.

  "Yeah. I spent hours thinking about you."

  She closed her eyes briefly, fighting the seduction. "The police found a dead body. That had a very fancy bulletproof vest on it."

  Another pause. Then an even response: "Huh. Any suspects?"

  "Not yet."

  "I didn't kill him, Mels, if that's what you're asking."

  "I didn't say you did."

  "That's what you're thinking."

  "Who are these people to you?" she cut in, making little boxes around the names he'd given her to research.

  "Just things that have bubbled up." His voice became distant. "Look, I'm sorry I called you about them. I'll get the info somewhere else--"

  "No," she said firmly. "I'll do it and I'll phone you back."

  After she hung up, she stared into space. Then she rose from her desk chair and went down a couple of cubicles. Leaning over the top of yet another gray partition, she smiled in a fake way that her colleague didn't know her well enough to spot. "Hey, Eric, what's up?"

  The guy's eyes shifted away from his computer monitor. "Hey, Carmichael. What can I do you for?"

  "I want to know about that murder at the Marriott."

  The reporter smiled, all cat-and-canary. "Anything in specific?"

  "The vest."

  "Ah, the vest." He rifled around the paperwork on his desk. "The vest, the vest..." He pulled a sheet free and spun it to her. "I found this on the Internet."

  Mels frowned as she read the specs. "Five thousand dollars?"

  "That's what they cost before they're customized. And his was."

  "Who the hell can afford that?"

  "Exactly what I'm asking myself." More rifling. "Big-time security firms are one. U.S. government is another--but not for your Joe Schmo FBI agent, mind you. You'd have to be very high-level."

  "Any VIPs in the hotel?"

  "Annnnnd that's what I looked into last night. Officially, the staff can't give out names, but I overheard the night manager talking to one of the cops. There's nobody special under their roof."

  "What about that area downtown?"

  "Yeah, I mean, there're some big businesses around the neighborhood, but they were all closed as it was way after normal business hours. And it defies logic that some dignitary was walking around Caldwell and one of his security team happened to go rogue and get his throat in the way of someone's knife."

  "When did it happen?"

  "'Round eleven o'clock."

  After she'd left and gone to the crime scene. "And no clue on the identity?"

  "Not a one. Which brings us to the next hi-how're-ya." Eric chewed on the end of a blue Bic. "No fingerprints."

  "At the scene?"

  "On the body. He didn't have any fingerprints--they'd been etched off."

  Mels's ears started to ring. "Any other identifiers?"

  "A tattoo, apparently. I'm trying to get some pics of it as well as the body, but my sources are slow." His eyes narrowed. "Why all the interest?"

  Fancy bulletproof vest. No prints. "What about weapons?"

  "None. He must have been stripped." Eric leaned forward in his chair. "Saaaaay, you're not trying to sweet-talk Dick into getting you a byline on this, are you?"

  "God, no. Just curious." She turned away. "Thanks for the info. I appreciate it."

  When the phone rang about a half hour later, Matthias just stared at the thing. Had to be Mels getting back to him.

  Damn it, this was a mess....

  After Jim had taken off to go do breakfast or errands or some shit, naturally, the first thing he'd done when he was alone was call Mels and try to find out if that story was true about the father and the son up in Boston. It hadn't dawned on him that she'd have heard about what went down in the basement, but come on, sloppy thinking much? It was all over the cocksucking news. Even nonreporters who didn't keep up with that kind of shit knew.

  The phone stopped its electronic ringing. But she was going to redial.

  God, her voice when they'd spoken. She'd sounded suspicious, and in so many ways that was the best thing for her. Yet it killed him.

  When the phone started going off again, he couldn't stand it. Grabbing his cane, he walked out the door of his room and headed blindly for the elevator. As he took it down, he had no clue where he was going. Maybe breakfast.

  Yeah, breakfast.

  It was what people did at nine a.m. all over the country.

  Annnnnd, of course, the only restaurant that was open for business was the one he'd gotten to know intimately the night before--and as he walked past the colored glass wall, he decided to go off Marriott property to--

  "Matthias?"

  At the female voice, he pivoted around. It was the nurse from the hospital, the one who'd given him a helping hand, so to speak. Outside of work, she was fresh as a daisy, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a pale dress hanging below her knees.

  She kind of looked like a bride.

  "What are you doing here?" she said as she came over. "I thought you'd be home recovering."

  As people walked by her, they all stared, men with hot speculation in their eyes, women with varying degrees of envy and dislike. Then again, she was stupidly beautiful.

  "I'm okay." He tried not to stare at her. It was like looking into the sun, painful on the eyes. "How about yourself?"

  "My mom's come into town. Or rather, she was supposed to be here by now. Her flight was due in a half hour ago, but it got delayed in Cincinnati because of storms. I've been debating whether to wait or go home--we were going to have breakfast. Is that where you're headed now?"

  "Ah, yeah."

  "Well, then, how about we go dutch. I'm starved."

  Her black eyes positively sparkled, to the point where they made him think about the night sky. But it wasn't enough to make him want to cop a squat in the--

  "Okay," he heard himself say, like some third party had taken over his mouth.

  Together, they walked over to t
he maitre d's stand.

  "Two," Matthias said as the man did a double take at the nurse, and then froze like a deer in the headlights, apparently struck stupid by all the lovely.

  "I'd like a window seat," she said, smiling slowly at the guy. "Perhaps over..."

  Not the window he jumped out of, Matthias thought.

  "...there."

  Bing-fucking-o.

  "Oh, yes, sorry, right away." The maitre d' got with the program, snagging a couple of leather-bound books and leading the way. "But there are some better views across the room, overlooking the gardens?"

  "We don't want the sun to be too bright." She put her hand on Matthias's arm and gave him a little squeeze, as if she wanted him to know she was watching out for his bad eyesight.

  Man, he really didn't like her touching him.

  As they walked across the room, the nurse created a total stir, men peering over the tops of their Wall Street Journals and their coffee cups and sometimes their wives' heads. She took it all in stride, like it was just the normal course of things.

  After they sat down in front of the window he'd violated with Jim, coffee materialized, and they mulled over the menus. The civilized bullshitting that came with picking and choosing among the fifty different plates of good-morning got on his nerves. And he didn't want to eat with her, although to be fair, he didn't want to eat with anybody.

  The stuff with Mels was the problem. Yeah, he'd called her with that info search, but the bigger truth was, he'd just wanted to hear her voice.

  He'd missed her through the night--

  "Penny for your thoughts?" the nurse said softly.

  Matthias looked out the window at the building across the alley. "I just realized--I don't know your name."

  "Oh, sorry. I thought it was on the whiteboard in your room."

  "Probably was, but it could have been in neon lights and I don't know if I'd have noticed."

  This was a lie, of course. In fact, there hadn't been a nurse listed, just a doctor, and there hadn't been a name tag on her scrubs.

  Which seemed a little strange, come to think about it....

  She took an elegant hand and laid it on her breastbone--which seemed like an invitation to check out her cleavage. "You can call me Dee."

  He stuck with her eyes. "As in Deidre?"

  "As in Devina." She glanced away, as if she didn't want to go into it. "My mother has always been a godly woman."

  "Which explains your dress."

  Dee shook her head ruefully and smoothed the skirt. "How did you know this getup isn't me?"